I was hoping someone could help me get some facts strait about Chinese Airlines and how the civil aviation system works there.
From what I've found there are four airlines: Air China (I think the largest) China Eastern, China Southern and Shanghai Airlines. Seems like Air China is based out of Beijing, though has a good chunk of flights out of Shanghai. China Eastern seems to be about the same. Shangai Air is out of Shanghai (Duh!) and China Southern out of Guangzhou. I've gotten a sort of idea of how their route structures work, but where and when are they allowed to have overlapping routes? Who is given international routes (they all have at least some international flights (I think Shanghai Air at least goes to Japan)) and who gives them permision to fly them? Is the system regulated?

Okay please correct anything that I've said or will say that is wrong.

Are all of the airlines owned by the government? Are any of the airlines owned by the government? Are there any other Chinese Airlines I'm not mentioning (remember, China Airlines is from Taiwan, as is EVA Air).

Where would I be able to find out their annual revenues? Well maybe just for 2001 or the last few quarters of this year. Does the Chinese government allow them to publish that sort of info?

Okay I know there are sort of a lot of questions I'm answering but I'd really (if I knew how to bold really, I would) really would appreciate any info you can offer me.

At least, China has not only got 4 carriers, there are something like 30 airlines (can't remember the details) flying in mainland China, but only a few have been allowed to operate international flights.

Indeed, Air China, China Eastern and China Southern are three biggest carriers based in China. By the way, Air China is not the largest carrier in term of fleet number, China Southern would be ranked top 1 as it has got about 180 aircrafts after the nationwide regrouping, but other two have only gained somewhere around 120 jets.

In addition, there are a lot more to say, but I'm busy right now, so can't really write anymore, but if you're interested, you may visit the following links:

Civil Aviation Resource Net of China (CARNOC) [English Version] @ http://www.carnoc.com/en/ [The largest civil aviation web site based in mainland China, but English version had only been launched for a short time, so not very informative, but Chinese version is well-known in the industry]

Civil Aviation Administration of China [The mainland government authority which regulate airline affairs], English version of their web site is currently under construction. CAAC Chinese version is available @ http://www.caac.gov.cn

As a remark: The Chinese airline industry will get into deep changes within the next years. The government has just published their plans to merge the largest airlines into three megacarriers. I have a report on airways.ch about the planed consolidation.

Airways,
It is not absolutely correct to say the government push the merge because the biggest shareholder of the mainland carriers are Chinese government(central or local).

And in the past, there was just one mainland carriers, Civil Aviation Adminstration of China (CAAC). Because of some reson, the carriers divided to several carriers and later on some small, new carriers are formed. Now, those carriers are just merging again!

CXCPA: I agree with you that the government is the largest shareholder of all these airlines. And they have full control about the airlines' decisions. So you're right when you say, it's not a pushing. It's more an order.

I also agree with you on the second statement about the CAAC. There was just one single carrier until the 1980s.

Airways, it is right that Shanghai Airlines official web site has only got Chinese version, but it seems that they will get the English version on the net soon in the future (unconfirmed info, someone from Shanghai Airlines told me).

So when will the mergers be finalized? Which airlines are being consolidated? All I know is that Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern are going to be the three national owned airlines (so therefore excluding Shanghai Airlines and Hainan Airlines, which are owned by the city and provincial governments, respectively).

Are there going to be any fleet rationalization plans, since the state-owned airlines in China fly quite a mishmash of a/c?

A while ago, CAAC (which does not actively control one airline in particular, still does regulate commercial aviation in China) had enacted a ban on fare sales between all the state-owned carriers, in an effort to try and maintain profitablity between the many airlines. But from what I heard, China Southwest went ahead anyways and still was selling deeply discounted fairs, much to the disdain of the CAAC. Did they stop this technically illegal fair sale, or is it still going on? Was China Southwest ever punished for this?

Speaking of China Southwest (from my last question), I started browsing around their site, and checking out flights that I did back when I was living over there. I saw that they now send a 757 to Lhasa, in addition to the a340 that they usually send (and that I rode myself when I went there).

When did this start? Is there really enough of a demand to justify this much capacity on this route?

Boeingnut, the following details have not been officially confirmed, but I gained info from various sources:

The regrouping mergers would be fully completed in 2003 if everything goes well according to several publicly published news reports, government announcements and files, but some analysts believe that it is likely going to be the early 2004.

New Air China: Air China, China Southwest Airlines, CNAC; All aircrafts of these mentioned carriers would belong to the new Air China.

New China Eastern: China Eastern, China Northwest Airlines, China Yunnan Airlines; All aircrafts of these mentioned carriers would belong to the new China Eastern.

New China Southern: China Southern, China Northern Airlines, China Xinjiang Airlines; All aircrafts of these mentioned carriers would belong to the new China Southern.

It is right that CAAC has now still got the control of air ticket price in mainland China, but CAAC minister Yang Yuanyuan publicly promised that the air ticket price will totally depend on the market which means that it is going to become free market in general.

Moreover, regarding on the question about China Southwest Airlines was selling discounted fare tickets, I'd better shut up, because don't really know what actually happened, but there is no doubt that CAAC has a lot of troubles to get all ticketing-related issues well controled.

Boeingnut, it is difficult to answer your question due to the fact that Chengdu-Lhasa route is a little bit special in many terms compare to other domestic routes, but it seems that more air travellers are starting to appear on this route.

Indeed, there are often seats left on flights to or from Lhasa, but the situation is getting better. By the way, China Southwest Airlines has offered some low price tickets to a lot of leading Chinese travel agencies and a few foreign ones to attract more passengers flying with them.

Here are pictures of timetables from some of the more obscure chinese airlines:

Chang'an Airlines

China General Aviation Corporation

China Northern Swan Airlines

Shantou Airlines

Shanxi Airlines

Wuhan Airlines

If anyone can supply me with timetables from other unusual chinese airlines, please let me know. You'll get good money for them! I'm looking for timetables such as Chang'an (with the old logo), Zhongyuan Airlines, Fujian Airlines, Zhejiang Airlines, CNAC, and others.